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| Posted By |  Subject :My new born foal is really sick |
Last Friday Ranger stopped nursing and got a little listless. The following moring he was so weak that he could not get himself up and he felt warm to the touch. I cooled him off with the water hose and called the veterinarian. He came out and injected some antibiotics and checked him out. Thought made he had an intestinal blockage due to being dehydrated. Had to give the poor fella an enima. He was not happy about that. frown
The next day he got worse and I had to come and lift him up on his feet and try to get him to nurse. At this point, Mom was so bagged up and overfull that she was pretty sore and bite Ranger whenever he tried to nurse. Kicked me in the knee while I held her from the front with her halter. Not a good situation. I got him to eat a little sweet feed and drink some water...........well a lot of water (about 2 quarts) and he seemed to feel better and got up to nurse. This time Mom let him. Came back latter that night and he was still up on his feet and nursing strong.
The following morning, I arrived expecting Ranger to be his more his normal self, only to find him on the ground in a heap. He had not nursed all night and was VERY weak. Took me almost an hour to get him on his feet and when he got on all fours; he was shaking and could barely keep his balance. Helped him over to Mom and he nursed. I made a nice hay bed for him which he immediately flopped in after he nurse. Called the vet. and he could not get to me until 06:30 pm. This time the vet was really concerned and injected a lot more antibotics and gave me a 3 day course of antibiotics to inject Ranger with. We got Ranger on his feet again and he was really stiff and rigid with very poor balance. The vet was sure he had a some kind of a bad infection. To be on the safe side, the vet wanted to get some mineral oil in Ranger's gut to make sure his system was not blocked. Boy! He was REALLY unhappy about having a tube pushed down his throat and having a quart and a half of mineral oil pumped into this stomach. Then came another water enima. He was just as unhappy about the 2nd as he was about the 1st. After being stuck, poked, and prodded; he nursed a good bit and flopped back in the hay pile.
Went back to check on Ranger around 10:30 pm after I got back from my daughter's softball game and he was gone! Could not find him. Mom was raising hell, kicking her feet up and bucking and running back and forth. I was fearing the worst. I got the light out of my truck and searched the field and finally found him laying on the ground all the way at the end of the field all by himself. He was still really weak and could not get himself up. Just laying there squealing for me to help him. You would not believe how heavy a 3 week old foal is! :duh: I was barely able to get him on his feet and walked him back to Mom. My back is killing me! ;)
Anyhow, this moring about 06:30 am; I checked on him and he was still laying down where I left him last night. I injected him with a syringe of ampacilin. He got up much easier and seemed to have a little more life in him. Threw my back out again this morning getting him up. Started squealing for Mom as soon as I got him up. He seems better this morning anyhow.
It is amazing how you get attached to these little guys. For some reason he prefers to hang around with me an trusts me implicitly...... almost like a little child. It is tough trying to figure out what is wrong with them as you can't ask them and Mom can't tell you what she knows. For now Ranger seems to be improving. I check on him about every 3 hours. Any suggestions or ideas from any of you guys who have some experience with horses would be VERY much appreciated.
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Chief, I rarely visit this part of the board but I like horses and after reading this POST I couldn't help wondering and hoping that the foal got well. Please say that he is OK. Steve
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Justus, Ranger is doing very well now. Turns out that his mother would not let him nurse and he got weak.
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I'm very glad to hear that Chief, thanks for the reply.
Please give Ranger a carrot for me.
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Every time our equine vet left with another car payment in his pocket, we'd wonder how they ever managed to survive in the wild.
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Based not only on situations such as this but on more than a few other things that I have encountered since this problem with Ranger; I have started rearranging my life to be a LOT more self sufficient.
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